In the thrill of the hunt

[tpickles]

login: tpickles211
player: Donald Tanner

Sitting in the corner of a dimly lit room, I began my first lesson. Men were pitted around a dead carcass. In the center, a man wearing a bear’s hide was reciting words common to my ears. I did not know what they were all focused on for I had not gone on the hunt; I was too young. I jolted to my feet and began to circle the group of hunters, awaiting my chance to peer inside and see the spoils of the hunt. Just as I had, drums began to beat. My heart quickly matched the tempo. My eyes darted from each opportunity to see the victim, but every opening closed to quickly for me to identify the prey. Finally the drums stopped and the men dropped, but my heart was now beating faster than ever.

The dead lay not five feet from me; it was human. Hands clenched and elbows bent as if its last moments in this plane were of intense agony. Its skin was pale because it had been bled out – a common practice of Malarite hunters. But I will never forget the man’s eyes. To this day I have not seen nearly as much suffering in eyes of even a live man. These priests were proud of this. Therefore it was my place to be proud of them.

All of these thoughts rushed through my head in the instant that lay in between the hunters collapsing and the den members to begin clapping at a successful High Hunt, a day holy among our people. And with this day I would never be the same weak creature I had once been. For I had learned that the hunt has no bounds; man’s mortality is but a fact to prove this statement. Therefore the hunt must not be halted for it is what preserves power in our world. We must seek power and destroy those who are too weak to handle it. And above all, we must eradicate the fallacies that the druids have been themselves upon.

Where do I find myself in the midst of all these duties? We are not bloodthirsty people; we are but guardians of power. Despite are wide influences across these lands of Faerûn, we are not widely understood. Therefore I must use my cunning to destroy the weak, eliminate the fallacies of civilization, and restore magnificence to he who bears man names: the Stalker, the Render, but above all the mighty Malar. His will be done.

[Black Rider]

Reviewd, XP pending.